Mythology and Symbolism of Eurasia and Indigenous Americas: Manifestations in Artefacts and Rituals

A system of myths, symbols, and rituals, dating back to the Paleolithic and Neolithic, survives in present-day imagery. In exploring this system, special attention is drawn to the linkage between ancient and contemporary civilizations of Eurasia and Mesoamerica, as seen in their cosmology, and expressed in common mythological and iconographic themes. The author examines contemporary Middle American and eastern European textiles, especially women’s garments, that contain an elaborated sacred code of symbols, and include remnants of the four horizontal directions, and the three vertical worlds that portray the structure of the universe. The cosmology contained in patterns around the world denotes striking parallels that attest to internal connections between different cultures, beyond time and place.

Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba is Professor of Hispanic Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her publications include Fierce Feminine Divinities of Eurasia and Latin America: Baba Yaga, Kali, Pombagira, and Santa Muerte (2015), and The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe: Tradition and Transformation (2007).